Symposium EN05-Field-Responsive Composites for Sustainable Energy

The core idea of sustainable energy is that energy is harvested, transmitted and consumed in an environment benign, efficient and responsible way. Among all the forms of energy known to human, electricity has been, and will still be in the foreseeable future, the most important form of sustainable energy. For this reason, the major topics of sustainable energy have been the efficient conversion of other forms of clean energy, such as solar, hydro, wind, or thermal et.al., to electricity as well as the transmission and storage of electricity.

Coupling and interplay between electric, magnetic, and stress fields are of critical significance in the conversion and storage of electrical energy. Field-responsive composites, which mediate and physically realize the coupling of fields, thus take the center stage in research of sustainable energy. By synergistic fusion of constituent materials, field-responsive composites are capable of realizing non-intuitive field coupling, such as magnetoelectric coupling and piezoelectric effect, and of achieving unprecedented high efficiency of energy conversion and high energy storage density which could not otherwise be achieved by the constituent materials.

This symposium will bring together an international group of researchers from across disciplines to share their vision and insights for field-responsive composites, focusing on the conversion, transmission and storage of energy. Contributions on all aspects of field-responsive composites, such as field-responding physical mechanisms, new design paradigm for field-responsive composites, composite synthesis, advanced composite processing techniques, and novel applications of field-responsive composites are welcomed. The hope is that this symposium could boost the research for field-responsive composites and promote their applications in sustainable energy.

Topics will include:

Polymer composite dielectrics for electrical energy storage
Piezoelectric/triboelectric composites for mechanical energy harvesting (nanogenarators)
Composites for thermal managements
Photo-responsive composites and their applications
Composite solid electrolytes for electrochemical energy storage
Magnetoelectric and magnetodielectric composites
Advanced structures with printing techniques

Invited Speakers:

Jaime C. Grunlan (Texas A&M University, USA)
Xingyi Huang (Shanghai Jiaotong Unversity, China)
Jari Juuti (Oulu University, Finland)
Maarit Karppinen (Aalto University, Finland)
Sanat K Kumar (Columbia University, USA)
Raffaele Mezzenga (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Joe Perry (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Linda S Schadler (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Henry Sodano (Michigan University, USA)
Rong Sun (Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
Chuanbing Tang (University of South Carolina, USA)
Xiahohui Wang (Tsinghua University, China)
Uli Wiesner (Cornell University, USA)
Qiming Zhang (Pennsylvania State University, USA)
Lei Zhu (Case Western Reserve University, USA)